The Final Conversations with Christ- Part 2

NyQuil is a beautiful, beautiful thing. As someone who spends the 3-6 days of a cold feeling like I’m constantly being punched in the face while wearing nose plugs, I’m all for an over-the-counter nap in a bottle. And who can blame me? Being sick is the worst. So of course when I’m up all night thinking about how much I can’t breathe, I’m gonna take a dose. And that’s fine.

What’s not fine is taking a swig for the next 4 months every time I sneeze. You might say “Well duh, that’s excessive and dangerous and bordering on dependency.” But what you don’t know is I am totally guilty of this.

And so are you.

What?! That’s crazy, I know. But hear me out, because the collective body of Christ has been coddling their hurts long past necessary for generations, and it can put us in a spiritual coma. In my own life, I’ve seen this manifest in two ways: my unwillingness to stop being a victim, and doubting God when He miraculously intervenes. What does this look like exactly? It looks like the times I am hurt or betrayed and my primary interest is letting the world know my pain and not finding resolution. It looks like digging up old dirt and smashing it on my shirt like a badge of honor. It looks like receiving rapid and miraculous emotional healing from the Lord after one of the most difficult times of my life and denying it because I “feel like I wasn’t grieving long enough.”

During Sunday’s message, Pastor Aaron said that “the time of your struggle will depend on who you run to first.” I’m pretty sure this advice will be among the first I give to my children one day, because boy could I have stood to hear it five, six, even ten years ago. King David, a man with more struggles than you and I could ever hope for, knew it. In Psalms 39:7 he writes “And so Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you.”

Knowing what we know about God being a rock on which to stand, a shelter to seek refuge in, and the guard of our hope, why then do we continually run to our own publicized despair for fulfillment in times of crises? Would you refuse to walk for years after breaking a leg? Did the blind man Jesus healed refuse to open his eyes and see because that’s not how you deal with being blind? Absolutely not.

Do not mistake me, I am not suggesting that we all adopt a “rub some dirt in it and buck up” attitude when it comes to emotional and mental trials in our lives. Some wounds really do take time and time and more time to work through, whether it’s through prayer, counseling, support groups, doctors, or all of the above. You wouldn’t offer a Band-Aid to a gunshot wound, and emotional wounds should by no means be treated that way either. But eventually, we must stop with the quick fix, spiritual “NyQuil” to which we can become addicted. Each time we drink in the same despair and self-pity we use to feel better temporarily, we are putting ourselves to sleep spiritually. So often we do not evaluate the cost of the time spent dwelling on things God has already tried to speak freedom from for us, and the cost is the deeper spiritual growth we have not experienced because we are too busy licking old wounds.

I spent years sipping spiritual NyQuil like tea-finding a whole array of things to be hurt over for the sake of being hurt. It was not until I began truly and honestly running to God, and not any ear that would listen, that I accepted the healing He had for me and began moving on to bigger things, things I had no idea were in store for my walk with Christ. So this week I leave you with this challenge: Take time to examine your own heart about the wounds you wear, and keep on keepin’ on.

Written by: Brianna Vanderveen

Edited by: Jenelle Kelly